Mozambique airline board sacked after PM left stranded

Maputo, July 6, 2018 (AltAfrica)- The board of Mozambique’s national airline, LAM, has been sacked after the carrier cancelled flights this week and left Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario stranded

State-controlled LAM said it was working to ensure flights resumed on Friday after the government intervention.

Do Rosario, who had been due to fly from the capital Maputo to Niassa in the northeast on official business, was eventually forced to take an airforce plane to reach his destination, reports said.

“LAM Mozambique Airlines confirms that because of limited finances it was impossible to supply aircraft with fuel meaning that the first flights of the day could not be operated,” the airline said in a statement.

“After talks with the fuel supplier, aircraft were refuelled and flights resumed at 11:20 am (0920 GMT),” it added calling the incident “embarrassing”.

Departure boards at Maputo’s airport showed that every LAM flight due to operate on Thursday had been cancelled.

Mozambique has been in the grip of a deep financial crisis since 2015 when hidden state borrowing of about $2 billion (1.7 billion euros) was discovered, prompting international donors to terminate aid contributions.

The southern African nation sits on some of the world’s largest untapped natural gas reserves but has been cut off from multilateral and foreign donors after the government admitted to $1.4-billion of undisclosed borrowing in 2016.

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